A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

Meanwhile, want to know why mortgage fraud ran rampant (and likely still does)? Because nobody is out there prosecuting the perpetrators, including the world's most famous (or infamous) mortgage fraudster.

If everyone thinks they can get away with crime because laws are no longer enforced in the United States, all bets are off. Rape? Murder? Bank Robberies? Hey, why not, because under George Bush's corrupt Justice Department and keystone-cops FBI, the US is obviously no longer a nation of laws.

31 comments:

Here's a good one - wanna bet no law enforcement is even looking at this corrupt realtor:

Realtor Caught in Cash-Back-at-Closing’s Crosshairs

http://tinyurl.com/2ostbn

According to Realtor Lori Polin, she was totally unaware that what she was involved with consisted of real estate and mortgage fraud.

If ignorance of the law was an appropriate defense, she could be off the hook. Unfortunately it’s not.

According to a recent story in the St. Petersburg Times titled, “Unsigned letter accuses agent of mortgage fraud,” Polin was allegedly involved in classic cash back at closing schemes.

Here’s how a cash-back at closing scheme works: The buyer pays more for a property than it’s worth, and the seller agrees to kick back the surplus cash to the buyer at the closing. On its surface, cash back at closing seems to benefit everyone involved. The buyer pockets some extra cash. The seller unloads his house at or near the asking price. The real estate agent gets a bigger commission. The loan officer chalks up another successful loan. And the lender stands to earn more interest over the life of the loan. Everybody wins.

Anyone else get the feeling you could have stolen millions these past few years with cash back at close deals, with no chance of ever being prosecuted?

http://tinyurl.com/2dc3vx

Fraud Seen as a DriverIn Wave of Foreclosures

ATLANTA -- Skyrocketing foreclosures are a testament to how easy it was to borrow from mortgage lenders in recent years.

It may also have been easy to steal from them, to judge from a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme that federal prosecutors unraveled here in Atlanta. The criminals obtained $6.8 million in mortgages from Bear Stearns Cos., including a $1.8 million mortgage to Calvin Wright, a New Yorker who told the investment bank that he and his wife earned more than $50,000 a month as the top officers of a marketing firm. Mr. Wright submitted statements showing assets of $3 million, a federal indictment alleged.

In fact, Mr. Wright was a phone technician earning only $105,000 a year, with assets of only $35,000, and his wife was a homemaker. The palm-tree-lined mansion they purchased with Bear Stearns's $1.8 million recently sold out of foreclosure for just $1.1 million. Bear Stearns, meanwhile, posted the first quarterly loss in its 84-year history as it wrote down $1.9 billion of mortgage assets yesterday. (See related article.)

Fraud goes a long way toward explaining why mortgage defaults and foreclosures are rocking financial institutions, Wall Street and the economy. The Federal Bureau of Investigation says the share of its white-collar agents and analysts devoted to prosecuting mortgage fraud has risen to 28%, up from 7% in 2003. Suspicious Activity Reports, which many lenders are required to file with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network when they suspect fraud, shot up nearly 700% between 2000 and 2006.

Violent crime will always be prosecuted. White collar crime is so hard to investigate and so hard to prosecute. Thus in the past few years people could commit financial fraud and get away with it and others what was happening and they decided to join the party.

The cretins at the FBI and district attorneys are more interested in making healines. Arresting people for mortgage fraud is not frontpage news. Nobody is going to quote you or give you a press conference for arresting Casey Serin or Jose the lettuce picker. The FBI's #1 job isn't enforcement of the law, it's to make headlines. A few years ago, they spent 3 years and $10 million in a case to arrest a bunch of 80 year-old guys with Italian name for playing cards at a neighborhood cafe. They claimed that they were Mafia. That's how you get the big headlines. The jury acquitted all of the defendents.

That is exactly how it works...and did in Portland Oregon. A LO and a Realtor owned 2 pieces of property together. They are listed for a price in MLS. A Mortgage Broker approaches them and presents them with the idea of raising the prices (which they did). He them (with a stolen identity and Appraisers #) produces fraudulent appraisalsand the three fraud the bank out of about 70K on one home and 90K on the other.

All cashback deals are fraud unless the lender knows that they are lending more than the property is worth. If the cashback is not put into an escroll account for repairs, it can be used on a vacation or car, which does not improve the value of the property. Honesty was never part of the REIC, so I don't expect them to agree.

Maybe we can help the FBI. Go house shopping and ask for big cashback deals under the table. When the realtor and seller agree, call the FBI and have them set up a sting.

Anyways, no need to jail them, their lives are already ruined. Save the prisons for violent criminals. If we had the jail space and money, it'd be one thing, but I don't want my taxes going up to pay the cost to house these scumbags.

Seriously, the typical realtor/mortgage dirtbag was living the high life with the big house, BMW, Rolex, cocaine, etc etc., and now it's all over and he has to live an a shitty apartment and drive an old Honda and work at McDonald's now. It's worse than prison for them.

I guess this is why real estate prices went to the moon.As all the crooks got money back it inflated the values for everyone so they could use the housing atm.I cannot believe all this shit you guys.What a scam.Now you are going to really see what homes are worth.

Why are lenders so stupid to hand out a loan for more than the house is worth on a cash back deal?Easy, because they don't care. The loan gets securitized with a bunch of other questionable deals and sold off to some other bag holder.Everybody wins except the bag holder. Problem these days seems to be that we ran out of bag holders....bummer. No bag holder, no deal.

Sold in summer 2006. Dropped our asking price by 60K and sold to "real" people. At the time, there were other sellers working with an investment group who turned out to be crooks (Stonewood). My agent warned me about them. She said it was "fishy" and didn't want to be involved even though it would have been an easier sale.However, my neighbor did a deal with Stonewood. Classic case of cash back fraud. Renters moved in only to find out house was being foreclosed. They lived there rent free several months and must have trashed the place. It's now on the market for $200,000 less that what it sold for Oct. 2006.

"Seriously, the typical realtor/mortgage dirtbag was living the high life with the big house, BMW, Rolex, cocaine, etc etc., and now it's all over and he has to live an a shitty apartment and drive an old Honda and work at McDonald's now."

Or in the case of the ex-lender superstar across the street: move back in with mom.

BTW a thought just stuck me as I was listening to NPR and they had the George Bush sounding guy mention "owner ship society" on whatever comedy show is on evenings, dont remember these days. But, I am thinking OK homeownership went to 69% from 61 right ??? How did they calculate that ???Did they say, ok There are this many houses and this many people so they must all be owners (or somehitng like that) Maybe this many listed as primary residences, and this many families, not people ... Yea, how do they weed out the Casey Serins who own 12 houses as their primary residence, and still live rented in his sister in law's apartment ???Yea, Thta is some feat though. Like my 10 motorcycles that dont run so I take the bus. OK OK Not that bad, like 3 that run out of 10, but every other month its a different 3.Cool.Cow_tipping.